Cape Town - Last week's heavy rains in the Karoo provided the province’s dam levels with a welcome boost.
The average dam level in the Western Cape this week stands at 82.6%, which is a little more than 2% higher than the level last year at the same time.
Local Government and Environmental Affairs MEC Anton Bredell said the thunder shower on Thursday evening last week, over the Garden Route and Central Karoo regions of the province, had provided much needed and very welcome relief.
“The Gouritz River catchment area has not seen rain like this for nearly nine years. Oudsthoorn received 41mm and Ladismith 57mm, amongst others.
“The rainfall was soft and continuous and caused less damage than we feared, although there were some isolated incidents of damage to infrastructure reported. However, we are ecstatic about the good rain.”
Bredell cautioned that it is likely too soon to declare the drought in the region as over.
“The agriculture sector in that region has been devastated by the drought that was just never-ending. We hope the good rains will go some way to see a recovery and we certainly hope to see more rain.”
Meanwhile, the South African Weather Services’ latest forecast for this week indicates there may be some more rain towards the end of the week for the central and eastern parts of the interior of the Western Cape.
Last week’s rains also saw Cape Town’s dam levels increase to 100.5%.
Mayco member for water and waste Xanthea Limberg said: “The dams rose by 1.7% in the last week, from 98.8% the previous week. At the same time last year, dam levels were at 99.4%.
“Daily water consumption for the same period increased to 732 million litres per day, compared to 718 million litres the week before,” said Limberg.